


Domino Effect

by Laylah



Category: Baccano!
Genre: Character Study, Community: no_true_pair, M/M, Travel
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2009-11-14
Updated: 2009-11-14
Packaged: 2017-10-02 16:05:27
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,312
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/8181
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Laylah/pseuds/Laylah
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>When did humans become more than abstractly fascinating? How did a collection of extortionists and killers become such wholesome company?</p>
            </blockquote>





	Domino Effect

This is changing everything. Maiza, with his habitual stubborn blindness, seems oblivious, but that makes it no less true. Inside Alveare, the men are laughing, cheering, their noise drowning out the click-click of the falling dominos. Maiza's laughter is part of the chorus. Maiza's laughter, and his honest smile, not the pained self-denying one he's hidden behind for the last two centuries. It had begun to seem he'd never show this kind of...joy, perhaps. Delight. Humans have so many words for it.

When did humans become more than abstractly fascinating? How did a collection of extortionists and killers become such wholesome company? The being who's been calling himself Ronnie Suchiato lights another cigarette -- that, also, a question: why is this poison so comforting? -- and listens to the plans being made inside.

The wish he granted to the other human on the ship was an excuse, no more, or he's told himself as much for years. Demons are supposed to be bound by their word, but he'd argue that 'demon' is a name he doesn't care for and it's never fit him well. He followed Maiza, watched over Maiza, to satisfy his own curiosity. Even when the old man showed up to try to eat him, Ronnie didn't interfere -- and that worked out far more interestingly than he'd have expected, so much so that he's rarely gone back to think about the way it _felt_ (such a strange word) when he expected Maiza to die.

And now he's standing on a street corner daydreaming about Maiza like a heartsick lover. Well, all right. It does keep life interesting.

*

Traveling hasn't been easy, in human form. He's held still, relatively speaking, for a very long time. In the spring of 1932 Ronnie convinces Don Martillo that he needs some time off. He buys a ticket for the transcontinental railroad. It doesn't occur to him until Chicago that he could give up his human shape now and nobody would be the wiser; he spends a good hour watching the scenery roll by and eventually, as they catch up to a thunderstorm and raindrops pelt the windows of the dining car, he decides against it. He's enjoying its limitations, is all, and the simple physical pleasure of sensation.

In Detroit he admires the factories, the industry and determination that produce such sturdy magic as the automobile. Crossing Kansas he watches sputtering trucks of farmers with failed crops crossing dusty plains in search of greener fields to the west. He makes conversation with the other passengers on the train; he's grown used to human company.

In Salt Lake City the train takes on coal and more food for the passengers. The lake itself is impressive, but less so than the people who have made the place into their promised land through sheer certainty alone. Ronnie wishes them well as their holy ground recedes in the distance along the rails. He's fond, he believes, of that stubborn self-denying type.

San Francisco, despite its youth, rivals New York for fascination. Built on gold, the city has already burned once and grown back -- to hear the residents tell it, grown back better than before. There are all manner of vices to be had, from the brightly painted brothels to the richly appointed opium dens. Ronnie takes a room in a boarding house for the novelty of it, and his landlady tells him the story of Norton I, Emperor of the United States and Protector of Mexico. It's the most entertaining thing he's heard in years, and he wants to tell it to someone.

Ah, no. He stands on the balcony of his room, watching the sun set over the water. He wants to tell it to Maiza. On the sidewalk below, two men are playing dominos, properly, the tiles clicking gently against the table. Ronnie wonders if the Martillos are still setting up dominos to knock them down again.

Well, all right. They say demons are creatures of desire, don't they?

*

It's early summer when Ronnie gets back to New York. The Martillos all seem happy to see him back -- gangsters are a much friendlier sort of criminal than alchemists. He tells them stories about the things he's seen, the people he's met. He reassures Firo that New York is still the greatest city in the world. He watches Maiza, feeling how the same responses he has to humans in general and more particularly the ones he's spent time with -- the protectiveness, the fascination, the desire to remain close by -- are stronger when he thinks of Maiza than with any other human he can remember.

Ronnie can remember a very, very long time.

"Have a drink with me," he says, when Maiza has finished detailing the family's business affairs during his vacation. "I missed you while I was gone."

"I'm flattered," Maiza says, smiling almost as though he means it. "I didn't realize you thought us so close."

"Of course," Ronnie says. He pours them drinks, the harsh whiskey their bootleggers bring in from upstate. His fingers brush Maiza's when he hands over the glass. "After all this time?" He can't resist the impulse to improve the liquor -- like traveling, like reading thoughts, it's more difficult when weighed down by the clay of a human shape, but he wants to make Maiza happy.

Maiza looks worried. "Forgive me," he says, "but I can't remember how long it's been."

"That's always the way, isn't it?" Ronnie says. He likes the way human language allows people to agree with each other and say nothing at all. He lifts his glass, and Maiza drinks with him. Surprise rolls off Maiza at the taste, and then pleasure. Ronnie enjoys that.

Still, he doesn't think he wants to go on like this, just watching, keeping quiet. It's more interesting to get involved, he's finding. "If you were using your power instead of ignoring it constantly, you would already have noticed," Ronnie says, and Maiza goes still. "Well, all right. We met on board a ship crossing the Atlantic, the year you were twenty-three."

"You're the demon," Maiza says.

"I still don't like what you mean when you call me that," Ronnie says. Maiza isn't smiling anymore, and already he misses it.

Maiza puts his drink down. "Why are you here?"

Ronnie shrugs. "For you, of course. I've been watching over you ever since." He smiles; he's nearly as unpracticed at it as Maiza, really.

"Why?" Maiza asks. He shakes his head. "We made our -- our bargain."

"Your friend," Ronnie says. He can't seem to help it. "It was his one wish." The words are bitter, and he wants to take them back immediately. It's strange, these human responses, these human wants.

Maiza shakes his head. "You're lying," he says. "That wouldn't keep you here for -- for two hundred years. You'd find some way out of it."

"Would I?" Ronnie says. He likes the thought; it makes him feel...lighter, less troubled. "Well, all right." There must be another reason, then, if neither of them is convinced. "I love you," he tries. Humans use that as an excuse for all kinds of irrational behavior, don't they?

He's never seen Maiza's eyes open so wide. "You --"

Ronnie sets down his drink and closes the distance between them before Maiza can argue that, too. "I love you," he says again. The emotions that Maiza gives off in response make him giddy, make him drunk much more quickly than the whiskey could. He leans in to claim a kiss -- his first -- why has he spent so much time watching, instead of doing? -- and Maiza stiffens but doesn't quite pull away, and this is changing everything, isn't it? One action tumbling into the next, cascading, until there's no chance of stopping.

Well, all right. Ronnie thinks -- Maiza clutches at his sleeve -- he might be learning to live with that.


End file.
